"Rick, come on."
"No, Melissa. We are not playing dress-up with the dolly. OK? She creeps me the fuck out."
In the cage beside her, Javier was wrestling with his shirt. He pulled it off and started stuffing it between the links in the fence. The smell of scorching cotton rose inside the room. She was just about to thank Javier when Rick said: "I'd watch out if I were you, buddy. She's a zombie."
Javier paused. "What?"
"Cannibal. Ate her own grandmother."
Javier frowned at Amy. "Is that true?"
"All the graphene. All the memory. Every last drop," Rick said.
Amy blinked. "She… she was fighting with my mom…"
Rick snorted. "Tell him the whole story, Amy. Tell him about the boy your grandmother killed."
"She was hurting people," Amy said, hearing desperation climb into her voice.
"You hear that, Javier?" Rick bent down at the waist and got nose-to-nose with the cages. "She was hurting people."
Javier lifted his chin. "You're lying. The failsafe–"
"Failed," Rick said. "Amy's grandmother killed a kindergartener. And then Amy ate her all up." He grinned at Amy. "You been hearing voices, kiddo? Feel like your skull's a little more cramped than usual?"
Amy backed up against the wall. She tried holding the towel closed, as though his seeing her naked still mattered somehow. But she didn't answer. Couldn't answer.
"Is he for real, Amy?" Javier asked. "Did you eat her?"
All of me, Granny said. Every last little bone and tooth.
Amy clutched her head. "Shut up," she whispered. "Shut up, get out, leave me alone…"
"There's your answer." Rick looked over at Javier. "What happened to your thumb, buddy?"
Javier closed his eyes. "Chingadera."
"You know how she works, now, right? Her OS just opens up for any old code that wanders in," Rick said. "Her skin's already a little darker. Maybe her little ankle-biters would have had your eyes, too."
I would have warned you about how this worked. But you were busy biting out my throat.
"I'm sorry." Amy covered her face. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"
Javier muttered something in Spanish. He pulled his shirt back. "I wondered what you were really in for. I thought…"
"You thought it was all some big mistake, right?" Rick folded his arms. "You thought anything so sweet and cute couldn't possibly be that bad." Grinning, he shook his head. "Sucker."
Javier looked away.
Amy sat up on her knees. "It's not like that! I didn't mean to lie, I just thought…" She swallowed. "I just thought you wouldn't be my friend if I told you what I'd done."
Javier's face whipped around. "You were right! I wouldn't have!" He curled his arms around Junior's little body and turned his back to her. "I'm lucky you didn't eat my kid."
"Take me away," Amy said after a moment. "I don't want to hurt anybody else."
You're giving in? You don't care what happens to you?
"I don't care what happens to me," Amy said.
You won't mind this, then. I'll even let you watch.
Cold rippled across her skin and stiffened her limbs. It frosted her resolve. She felt herself standing up. She felt the towel sliding down. Rick backed away.
"What are you doing?"
"Leaving," said a thing with Amy's voice. Granny.
"I prefer to be called Portia," Granny said with Amy's mouth.
Rick paled. "Oh, shit–"
Amy's hands – Portia's hands, now – shot out, towel closed tightly around each fist, and gripped the fencing. Discomfort sizzled up her arms; she ignored it. The charge was useful; the amount she absorbed hardened the gel in her limbs, transforming her body from something soft into something lethal. She pulled at the fence. The metal screeched backward, sparking, as she yanked it down. She tossed it behind her and stepped through the smoking hole of frayed wire.
Rick and Melissa reached for their guns. But the small space worked against them, trapping them well within the reach of her arms and legs. With a flick of the wrist, Portia twisted the towel into a whip and cracked it across Melissa's eyes. She kicked Rick solidly between the legs. He fell to his knees. She aimed for his head, next. It snapped backward. His teeth skimmed across her bare toes. Melissa charged Portia and she reached out, grabbed her wrist, slammed her against the live wires of the cage. Melissa's body stiffened. She twitched, teeth clenched together in a rictus of pain that had no impact, whatsoever, on anything in either Portia or Amy's consciousness.